Position: Cannabis coach at Buds Organic
Salary: $35,000-42,000, depending on the number of clients and garden visits made per year.
What she does: In an era of handcrafted everything, Natalie Carver is helping D.C. residents DIY their marijuana. Her small team at Buds Organic installs indoor cannabis gardens at clients homes and teaches people how to maintain and home-grow their own pot.
Carvers work starts with a consultation with a client to see the space, evaluate their budget and discuss their intentions for growing. She also analyzes a clients footprint, meaning how much space is available in a clients home vs. how large they want their garden to be.
Thats just the groundwork of putting in a garden, Carver says. The process continues with routine garden visits, where Carver checks in on the plant to make sure its getting the nutrients it needs to survive from the soil its planted in, and if not, troubleshooting.
Carver grows with organic super soil that she makes herself from a compost that includes kelp, seaweed, guano, alfalfa meal and more.
[We] treat this as a business, and not as a stoner hobby, she says.
Though clients needs vary medicinal vs. recreational Carver says she has never had a job thats as much pure fun as this one.
Its really such a beautiful process, she says. [Youre] starting with a seed [and] four months later you have a smokable flower.
How she got the job: Carver studied anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. It was in Canada where she first started farming and learned about the world of cannabis. She says she fell in love with plants natural growth cycles and the seasonality of the work.
Its never what I thought Id be getting into, Carver says.
Carver is also a local vegetable farmer, and many of the skills she uses in her work with Buds Organic are transferable from her gardening.
A lot of gardening skills are powers of observing, Carver says. The goal is to make a more beautiful, more perfect plant thats what I strive for.
Carver says even though there is still a lot of stigma around marijuana, she is optimistic. She says the most misunderstood part of her job is her target demographic. A lot of people think her job is to go to group houses and help people find weed. But most of her client base is young, employed and about to start a family.
What I do like about this job is its as much a people job as it is a growing job, she says. [The clients] trust me, and its a neat relationship.
Who would want this job: For starters, Carver says a good cannabis coach has to have a deep knowledge of weed. That doesnt mean where to buy it, or how to roll it: It means someone who knows the strains of the plant and how to keep a plant healthy.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker
Full Article: Cannabis Careers – Coaching Home Growers On Getting Beautiful Buds
Author: Staff
Contact: 408-920-5000
Photo Credit: Jason Hornick
Website: The Mercury News
